일본 마이너리티문학 연구의 현재와 과제 내셔널리즘, 우생사상 그리고 궁극의 문학

Abstract

This purpose of this thesis was to review of the literature pertaining to Hansen’s disease (also known as leprosy) and homosexuality as minority literature with the view of improving and supplementing results and addressing the insufficiency of domestic Japanese minority literature. As a precondition of review, minority and minority literature were fluidly and comprehensively defined as the “discriminated minority” and “literature of discriminated minority”, respectively. Although “minority literature” cannot be equivalent to “literature by minority”, there is a degree of overlap, because the “minority literature” embraces all the “literature by minority.” The research field with the most abundant relative outcome in conventional studies was the literature relating to ethnic Koreans in Japan and feminism. The former of these two research fields was designated as active, because the national and ethnic minority referred to as “ethnic Koreans in Japan” was accentuated along with post?colonialism and diaspora studies, whereas the latter field was acknowledged because of the recent upsurge in studies concerning female writers, or the sexual minority, and work was stressed even though the critical mind of feminism is not thorough. However, these two research fields differed in the way they advocated attendance of “minority literature”. Thus, this report concentrated on patients with Hansen’s disease and homosexuals, who are discriminated against and outcast as a result of their “minor bodily characteristics”, and their literature. Modern nationalism suppressed and isolated modern physical bodies and managed minds through the creation and division of space under the allocation of roles. One of these core logics was Eugenic Ideas. Based on Eugenic Ideas, Hansen’s disease patients, or those with recessive genes, were isolated and discontinued, and homosexuals, who are not able to fulfill their duty towards the community in terms of biological reproduction, became subjects of abomination and discrimination. Therefore, they form a minority of minorities, or the ultimate minority. Even the difference created between the visible minority of Hansen’s disease patients, on the one hand, and the potential, less obvious, minority of homosexuals, on the other hand, the two types of literature were found to be closely connected, and this is where the inevitability of being discussed together lies.